Examining the results to date from three players for whom Nick had high expectations entering the season.

While it’s hard to take a lot of meaning from the super early season results, today I’ll look at a couple of players and a pitcher that I was higher on than most people were entering the season and gauge their season outlook. We begin with two players who were integral to my strategy in the My Model Portfolio series: J.D. Martinez and Mookie Betts.

On April 8 Astros manager Bo Porter pulled J.D. Martinez from the game after a fourth-inning at-bat. Afterward neither Porter nor Martinez divulged the intricacies of the yanking, though Martinez did offer a hint, according to Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle:

Things might not look cheery in Houston, but J.D. Martinez is trying to turn the tides.

The Thursday Takeaway
On February 29, the BP team pitched 14 breakout candidates for the 2012 season. If the first two weeks are any indication, though, we may have missed a big one.

There aren’t many bright spots on the Astros, who are 5-8 to start the year and may struggle to maintain even that .385 winning percentage through the summer. But outfielder J.D. Martinez—who .274/.319/.423 as a rookie in 2011—has officially announced his arrival by emerging as one of the hottest hitters in the league through 13 games.

Each author's ballot may be found later in the article. Here, we neatly summarize
the results. In each division standings table you'll find the average rank of the team, plus the standard deviation. The lower the standard
deviation, the more in agreement the authors were about that team's place in the division standings. In our AL column, the
Royals had a standard deviation of 0, meaning that all authors agreed they would finish last. We have similar consensus with
the old/new Washington Nationals, also picked to finish last across the board. Such agreement is rare around here, and
obviously means that both the Royals and Nationals will finish third in their respective divisions.

It's received wisdom that strong rotations are important for teams seeking postseason success. How true is that these days?

The thing about conventional wisdom is that ad nauseum repeating of said wisdom isn't tantamount to demonstrable truth. If you're reading BP, you probably know this. So as the 2004 postseason looms, it's worth examining this particular baseball NOUN in further depth.

Welcome all to the results of the Baseball Prospectus Mid-Season Awards.
The points system is 10-7-5-3-1 for the MVP and Cy Young Awards, and 5-3-1 for the Rookie Awards. BP authors' picks, with all-too-clever comments, are included here, below the awards standings.
Hitters: Ballots, Points (1st Place Votes), (Avg/OBP/SLG/RARP/VORP)
Pitchers: Ballots, Points (1st Place Votes), (ERA, IP, SNWAR or ARP, VORP)

Welcome all to the results of the Baseball Prospectus Mid-Season Awards.

The points system is 10-7-5-3-1 for the MVP and Cy Young Awards, and 5-3-1 for the Rookie Awards. BP authors' picks, with all-too-clever comments, are included here, below the awards standings.

I was at Safeco Field on Tuesday, watching a fast-moving game that was on pace to wrap up 3-2 Mariners in about two and a half hours, and ended up with one of the longest, craziest games I've ever attended.
I scored this game. I've been working on an article about scoring and finding a good card to match your style, and thought I'd finally settled on one. This game, of course, became the torture-test for a scorecard:

Let's compare J.J. Hardy and Bobby Crosby:
Player Age EqBA/EqOBP/EqSLG
Hardy 20 .240/.316/.380
Crosby 23 .273/.356/.490
Adjusted for park and league context, Crosby's numbers were much, much better. How to balance that against the age differential? I think the question becomes: How likely is it that Hardy will post a line of .273/.356/.490 or equivalent by the time that he's 23? It's possible, certainly, and it's also possible that he'll post a line even better than that. But I don't think that it's *probable*. That's a lot of improvement to make. PECOTA would put the possibility at somewhere around 25%, I'd think, and I think that's enough to render Crosby the stronger prospect.

As many of our readers were submitting their ballots for the annual Internet Baseball Awards, 11 Baseball Prospectus authors went into the polling booths themselves, voicing their opinions on who should win the major baseball awards this year. Here are the results...

As many of our readers were submitting their ballots for the annual Internet Baseball Awards, 11 Baseball Prospectus authors went into the polling booths themselves, voicing their opinions on who should win the major baseball awards this year. Here are the results:

A lost season for the Angels has folks in Anaheim scratching their heads. John Smoltz's injury buries Bobby Thigpen's name for another year. The Royals' run evokes memories of George Brett and company. Sandy Alomar...you can probably guess what Chris will write about Sandy Alomar. Witticisms, Kahrlisms and roster schmisms in this edition of Transaction Analysis.